


Summer in the City

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 07:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18089942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: It’s no good. The combined strength of an eleven-year-old boy and whatever her weekly Pilates class and lugging Emma around has given her aren’t enough. They’ve been trying to reassemble the portable wading pool for the last hour – a family-sized vinyl thing with a plastic exterior frame, and they’d gotten most of it done before she was struck with the stark memory of Dean falling over one of the sides last summer and bending a part of said plastic frame out of shape.Or it's hot, Beth puts together a pool, Rio teaches, and it's business as usual.Mild spoilers for 2x02 and a little bit of speculation for the rest of the season based on the trailer.





	Summer in the City

“You need to hold it straight,” she repeats, dropping a little deeper into her squat, thighs burning, the dry grass prickling up around her bare feet. 

“I am!” Kenny calls back, and she can hear the pout she knows is on his face in his voice. Clamping her eyes shut in frustration, Beth squeezes the two bits of plastic together as hard as she can, feeling the sweat drip down her chest, the backs of her legs, frizzing her hair at the temples. She almost has it, can feel it – so close – when the plastic beam snaps back out towards her. She curses, falling onto her ass on the grass. 

It’s no good. The combined strength of an eleven-year-old boy and whatever her weekly Pilates class and lugging Emma around has given her aren’t enough. They’ve been trying to reassemble the portable wading pool for the last hour – a family-sized vinyl thing with a plastic exterior frame, and they’d gotten most of it done before she was struck with the stark memory of Dean falling over one of the sides last summer and bending a part of said plastic frame out of shape. She hadn’t had the energy to deal with it then, and had made the vague mental note to have a look at it before the next summer and see if it was fixable as she’d packed it away for the season. But now it _was_ next summer, Dean was sleeping at his mom’s, and Beth hadn’t thought to check on the pool before she’d invited Annie, Ruby and the kids over to try and fight the summer heatwave with an afternoon soak. 

“We could turn the sprinkler on instead?” she calls up to the sky, only to hear Kenny’s downcast little voice from across the yard.

“It’s not the same.” 

Beth sighs, lets her eyes slip shut again to try and block the image of her four kids, already in their bathing suits, pink-shouldered, pinker-cheeked, and teary-eyed from her line of vision. Hell, even Beth’s in her bathing suit already – a dark blue one-piece with a white-striped sweetheart neckline and thin fabric belt. She’s already ditched her shorts as they kept getting in the way, and she can feel the hot hand of summer uncurling at her back. She really should’ve put on more sunscreen than she did, but then, she wasn’t expecting this to take this long or be quite this painful. 

“Okay,” Beth says, recollecting herself. She rocks up enough to fall forwards onto her hands and knees. She flexes her arms, shakes them, trying to loosen them up. _Think strong, limber thoughts_ , she thinks, glancing up until all she can see is the faded blue vinyl of the wading pool material and the white plastic frame. She takes a deep, steadying breath. “Let’s try it one more time, okay?” 

The kids all cheer from the other side of the pool, and Beth crouches back onto her knees, ass resting against her heels briefly as she cracks her knuckles. She leans forwards to grip the plastic frame again, jerking it out a little at the base to try and set up. 

“You gotta hold it as tight as you can, okay, baby?” she calls out, weighing the movement in her hands. “And then on the count of three, I want you to pull it towards you, hard as you can.”

“Yup!” Kenny yells in reply, and Beth grounds her knees. 

“One…Two…Three!” 

She can feel him start to pull and promptly pushes, forcing the full weight of her body against the bent plastic pole, trying to slip it back into its notch. Her hands fumble, her weight not _quite_ enough, and it’s no use, she thinks desperately, pushing harder, scrambling in the dry grass, when suddenly the pull from the other side jerks so hard back, Beth almost collapses forwards into the side of the pool. She fumbles quickly, regaining her balance and slotting the pole into the base. Relief blossoms in her chest, and she throws her hands up, cheering triumphantly, a wide grin finding her face. 

“My big, strong man,” she gushes, brushing the grass off her knees as she climbs to her feet. 

“I do what I can.” 

And it’s enough to stop her dead. The voice is decidedly _not_ Kenny’s – it’s too deep, too gravelly, too desperately familiar. Beth lifts her gaze to see Rio standing at the opposite side of the pool, hands buried in the pockets of his black jeans (and jeez, those must be hot), as the kids scramble behind him to get the hose to fill the pool. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, gaze flicking between him and the kids, and Rio makes quick strides towards her, enough for her to back up a step, two, maybe three. His dark eyes give her a quick head to toe, and then slow on their way back up as he closes in on her. Trailing up her legs, pausing at her hips, where the line of her bathing suit starts, at the dip of her waist and then at her breasts, which are only kind of covered by the neck of her suit, before finally settling on her face. 

Beth folds her arms over her chest. She’s suddenly cripplingly hot, almost feverish with embarrassment and self-consciousness as Rio slows his stride towards her and she stops taking steps back. Beth’s always been pale, nothing can help that, but she’s painfully aware of how long it’s been since certain parts of her have seen any sun – the insides of her thighs, the lower swell of her cleavage, the skin just below her ass are all almost ghostly white. Even when she’d invited Annie over this afternoon her sister had joked that parts of her might flash fry as soon as she undressed. 

Rio finally stops maybe a foot in front of her, and as she cranes her neck up to look at him, she’s suddenly painfully aware of something else – namely that Rio’s _tall_. Sure, shorter than Dean, but without her trademark pumps, Beth’s eyeline is directly at his clavicle, which peeps up sharply below the hanging neck of his loose, black tank. 

“Needed to talk. You didn’t answer your phone,” he says, voice low, and Beth blinks, subconsciously reaching behind herself to grope her ass – she usually keeps her cell in the back pocket of her pants after all, and blushes quickly when all she gets instead is a handful of sweaty lower butt and upper thigh. 

“It must be inside,” she says, turning to look across her backyard, through the backdoor that opens onto the kitchen. It’s probably on the kitchen counter. She frowns, turning back to look at Rio who fixes her with that vaguely unimpressed look that still makes her fidget. 

“The coolers at the storage unit are down,” he tells her, moving on. “The motors overheated. It’ll take them the night to fix ‘em, so the drugs’ll need to be moved or they’ll be no good.” 

Beth blinks again, looking up at Rio. She breathes out a little, folds her arms a little tighter across her chest. 

“Right,” she says, nodding. She’d gotten the email from the storage unit too, and hadn’t thought a thing of it. She could kick herself now. “I can do it in an hour or so? Annie and Ruby will be here soon and one of them can stay with the kids.” 

Rio tilts his head down at her, face still impassive. 

“You got anywhere to move them to?” 

She racks her head. 

“I mean, I can just put them here for now? Dean’s old office is cool, and it locks. We can move them back in the morning, can’t we?” 

“We can,” he agrees. “But it ain’t a long term fix. We’ve got eight weeks left of summer. If this has happened already, it’ll happen again and we might not be free to move ‘em.” 

“Right,” Beth says, looking out across the yard. “I’ll think of something.” 

“Gotta think quicker than that.” 

The words briefly surprise her, but she guesses they shouldn’t. He’s taken to this ‘teaching her’ thing faster than she’d anticipated, and it’s surprised her, how he hasn’t lectured or patronised like maybe a part of her expected, but instead just does this – asks her questions quickly and unguardedly, forcing her to come up with reasons and solutions that he gently guides into action.

“I mean, I could look into a new storage locker?” she tries, but then frowns. “But I guess there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t happen there either. We need somewhere which has a back-up generator, so even if the motors blow, there’s a contingency plan.” 

He just watches her carefully, and Beth goes through the options in her head. Hospital? How on earth is she going to get over thirty pounds of illegal drugs into a hospital? That’s got to count for almost any emergency services place – police station, fire station, whatever. The school’s a no-go – the kids had been sent home last year when the air conditioner fried, and besides, Beth doesn’t like the idea of drugs being kept that close to children. The mall? Where on earth would she put them? She frowns, and then – yes!

“A movie theater,” she says suddenly, and Rio arches an eyebrow, head cocking in disbelief. “No, really. Ruby worked at one when we were in highschool. The projectors are so expensive to buy, right? And they overheat really easy, like, _really_ easy, so the projection rooms have to be kept at a certain temperature so that they don’t burn out. The theater owners usually have back-up generators, because it’s cheaper to do that than replace the projectors.” 

He nods slowly, a grin tugging at his lips which makes Beth preen. 

“You know anybody who owns a movie theater?” 

“No,” she says with a shrug. “But I will by the end of the day.” 

He laughs at that, that little, exhaling one that she kind of loves, the one that makes the skin around his eyes crinkle, and Beth can feel her breath leave her body all over again but for a whole new reason. She rocks forwards slightly, stepping, just a tiny bit, into his space, and she opens her mouth to say something, what, she’s not sure, when she hears a yelp behind him. 

Her gaze finds the source over his shoulder, where Kenny and Danny are fighting over the hose, and Beth groans, rolling her eyes and moving around Rio towards the kids. 

“Guys, come on,” she says. “I thought you wanted to swim?” 

By the time she gets there, Kenny’s standing on the hose, water coming out at a trickle, his face twisted in annoyance, as Danny tries to pull the thing from his grip. She sighs, reaching them, tugging lightly at the back of Kenny’s hair so that he has to tilt his head back to look at her. 

“Mom,” he groans, and Beth just gives him her best Mom Stare.

“Kenny,” she says, and he squirms on the spot, stepping off the hose so quickly that water bursts from the mouth of it, spraying all three of them in the process. Danny yelps in surprise, dropping it so that it wriggles like a snake across the grass. Leaning down, Beth grabs it before striding over to drop it in the pool. The sound of the water hitting the plastic base is almost jarring after the lazy quiet of the summer afternoon, and Beth waves Danny over, getting him to hold it as Jane and Emma race across towards them. She grabs Emma, lifting her into the pool to wade in the toe-deep water, before turning back to Kenny.

“Why don’t you and Jane get some of the pool toys out of the garage?” 

Kenny fidgets a little on the spot, looking irked, and so Beth deliberately softens her face, tilting her head. 

“Please,” she adds, and Kenny sighs, turning around towards the garage, Jane on his heels. 

At least with the heat, her bathing suit is already starting to dry, she thinks, wiping a few water droplets off her neck and her chest, before turning to look back at Rio. She’s oddly surprised to see him still there. She figured he might’ve taken the brief moment of chaos to vanish like he often did, but he hasn’t. Rather, he’s still there, watching her, an unreadable expression on his face.

She walks back across the yard towards him, the sound of Danny and Emma laughing and the water filling the pool loud behind her. 

“Was there something else?” she asks, coming to a stop in front of him. She’s not quite as close as they were before, and she’s less surprised than she’d like to admit when he sways in again to close the distance. 

“You’re red,” he says, and Beth blinks, gesturing vaguely at the day. 

“Yeah, well, it’s hot.”

Rio rolls his eyes, and then reaches for the strap of her bathing suit. He loops two fingers underneath, lying them flush against her skin as he tugs the fabric sideways just enough that they can both see the pale line of skin that was covered and the reddening skin of the rest of her. It’s her who rolls her eyes this time, reaching to pull the strap back, only he hooks his fingers so hard that the tips almost touch his palm, pressing his knuckles lightly into her shoulder. 

“How long have you even been out here?” he asks, a grin tugging at his lips, and Beth frowns, squaring her shoulders defensively, unconsciously pushing back into his hand. 

“About an hour.” 

And that sets him off, a sudden, bright sparking laugh, and Beth can feel herself blush, which can only make her redder. He clocks it, because of course he does, and if it’s possible, he laughs harder.

“Baby, you are _white_.” 

“Obviously,” Beth says, reaching for her strap again, only this time, Rio slides his hooked fingers down a little, avoiding her grip, and pressing his knuckles softly into the skin of her chest. 

“You ain’t put on any sunscreen?” 

“Of course I did,” her own hand tugs on the strap of her swimsuit, an inch or so above his. “I’m just…I’m pale. I burn easy.” 

“Right, right,” he says, and he’s stopped laughing, at least out loud, but his eyes are still bright after all, that familiar, amused glimmer there that twists inside her chest. “You need to top it up.” 

He says it like it’s a little known fact, and Beth gives him her best _no shit_ look, shifting her weight a little better. 

“I know how sunscreen works.” 

He arches an eyebrow at that, tilts his head down at her, makes a production out of dropping his fingers lower, so that they’re at the bottom of the strap, and Beth’s heart almost stops when the hard line of his knuckles find the upper swell of her breast. He tugs lightly at the strap, pulling it down just enough at her breast that the line of sunburn is visible there too. 

“You sure about that?”

Vaguely, she’s aware of Danny and Emma at the pool. She can hear Kenny and Jane chattering around the side of the house too, their voices getting closer. She can hear the cars on the road and the neighbours laughing, but none of it matters, not when Rio’s there, so close she can almost taste him. 

“I can help,” he drawls, leaning in, somehow, impossibly, closer. “With those hard to reach places.”

His fingers uncurl slowly, enough that the backs of them press into the curve of her breast and then drop just beneath the sweetheart neckline of her bathing suit, and they’re warm, of course they’re warm, and Beth lets out a shaky breath, watching him, watching her, and she can feel him, leaning closer, closer, and then - - 

“Can we pretend that I’m coughing?” a voice sounds behind them, and they both turn quickly to be met with Annie, standing in a bikini top and denim shorts, Sadie already across the yard, helping Beth’s kids with the pool. Rio slips his fingers out from her top, brushing an electric line in the process, and Beth flusters, putting distance between the two of them as quickly as she can. 

“Hey, you’re early,” Beth says brightly, and too loudly, trying to regain her footing, and Annie just raises an eyebrow. 

“You said come over whenever. I didn’t realise you’d have,” she gestures vaguely to Rio. “Company.” 

“Just had some business,” Rio drawls, and Beth nods quickly in agreement.

“Yep, which we will get right on.” 

And Rio just gives her a final once over which sets her alight from her toes to her cheeks, before waving a goodbye, ruffling Kenny’s hair on his way out. Annie and Beth both watch him leave, and it’s a minute, maybe two, before Annie breaks the silence.

“So, his hand was – ”

“Nowhere,” Beth says quickly. “He was just…I’m getting sunburnt. He was just…showing me.” 

If it’s possible, Annie’s eyebrows go even further up her forehead. 

“ _Riiiight_ ,” she answers. “I mean, that’s how I do it too. Just, straight up hand to-” she gestures both her hands at Beth’s breasts, and Beth can feel her blush deepen (if that’s even possible at this point). 

“We’ve got a job,” Beth says instead. “You know anybody who works in a movie theater?”

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever stop writing or thinking about these two? Popular opinion says no at this point.


End file.
